Video Games Live 2007 in London

As I mentioned on Monday, we went to Video Games Live, which was in town as part of the London Games Festival. It was a good show. Completely sold out the Royal Festival Hall and worth it if you’ve played at least one game from each of the classic franchises. (Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Mario, Sonic, etc.) If you haven’t… well, it’s a bunch of mildly entertaining music played by a small orchestra, interspersed with geeky in-jokes and dodgy video. Just my sort of thing ;)

I shan’t spoil it for our overseas readers but here are a few safe comments, good and bad:

Video was… a bit pointless. Clips were synchronised in time but not content. Mashing up gameplay footage from PS1 and Xbox 360 games was more distracting than enhancing.

Despite that, I was still disappointed that Square Enix wouldn’t let them use Final Fantasy footage. Their rendered sequences still look incredible.

Here’s a nice photo of the lit stage.

You have probably never heard Sonic’s theme played quite so soulfully. I barely recognised it. You should definitely consider the show if it’s in your area. See the official site (linked below) for the listings.

Before the show, there was also a cosplay competition. There were some truly great costumes there, including a fantastic Link in Wolf Form, a rather soggy-looking Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, and Lulu from FFX-2. Sadly for the wolf, the stage was completely stolen by a diminutive yet undiminished Purple Tentacle.

One Comment

There were a couple of really impressive cosplayers at the LA show, but it seems like the London attendees had a higher standard as a group. That Wolf Link was awesome.

About Debbie Timmins (Weefz)

Debbie owns and runs The Average Gamer. She started her gaming addiction during the mid-eighties on a lovely green Amstrad CPC64. From those early days of The Hobbit (say to Thorin “Carry me please”) she graduated to Lucasarts adventures and western C-RPGs. A few years of Discworld MUD addiction followed. Eventually she found first-person shooters, Japanese RPGs and Soul Calibur, and is now a fully-rounded gamer.
You can find her on Twitter as Weefz